Fledgling
by dragon of winter nights
Summary: Some seven hundred years before the Magic Knights are summoned to Cephiro, in the wake of the fall of another Pillar, a young boy meets his first Griffin.


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Fledgling

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Notes: This is not new - it's a little more edited than the original version, which went on lj a few years back, and I used it to test posting to the AO3 before yuletide this year. Then I realised I had never posted this here, and it seemed a good idea to have something to put up on the first, even if it's old and short - it's Clef, at least! *grin*

The next thing will hopefully be PY Chapter 22. I say this every time, I know, but I mean it! I need to go kidnap my beta-reader now. XD

In the meantime, here's something short, fluffy and pointless, which you might have already read under a different title. Um. Happy new year, everyone!

~down

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The brighter sparks in a bright sky faded out slowly, and the Master Mage lowered his head to watch the boy whose spell had created them.

The spell had been meant to create a bolt of lightning, not random sparks. He didn't say anything, but the boy looked at the ground and fidgeted, scuffing fairly battered boots together and gripping the small, plain wooden staff so hard his knuckles were white. Haphazard tangles of pale hair fell over the boy's face, nearly concealing it – but his embarrassed, angry blush was still visible.

"…You should have the hang of that by now, Clef, if you've been practising like I asked." He said, trying hard not to sound too annoyed. Clef had been studying with him for nearly a year now, and was usually good about the work. "Are you having trouble with it? …Or did you get into another fight?"

"I haven't been fighting anyone in _months!_" Clef's head shot up to glare at his teacher, familiar enough with the man now that his awe of the master mage had faded. The pale, still a little thin, face that looked up at him now was smudged with dirt across Clef's forehead, a fading bruise yellow and purple across one cheekbone, a new scratch long and thin across the other, and the blue eyes narrowed indignantly.

"You may not have fought anyone, but has anyone else been fighting _you?_ he asked, used by now to Clef's stubborn attitude – and the trouble that followed him most of the time. The boy's lips pressed tighter together, and he sighed. "Fine, then. You weren't in trouble for fighting. Why else would you be confined inside?"

Clef looked down at the ground again. "I wasn't sent to my room, I was just… distracted."

The mage blinked, and tried not to sound _too_ pissed off. "…distracted. _What_, exactly, distracted you enough to neglect your studies the past few days?"

The boy's head sunk lower, and he mumbled something too quietly and too low for the mage to catch - but they were interrupted at that point by a high-pitched shout from the castle road.

"C_LEF-NII-!_"

"I was distracted by _that_." Clef muttered, looking across the garden to the gateway.

The mage turned to see. One of the younger orphans that lived at the castle was pelting along the dirt track, waving his arms around. The mage recognised him after a moment: one of the newer children, a little girl a few years younger than Clef who had attached herself to the elder boy when some of the other children tried to bully her and he stepped in. (There were always a great number of children needing care after the fall of a Pillar; the new one could not bring back people lost in the chaos of the fall. But they could at least provide for those left behind.)

Her family had come here from one of the other worlds beyond Cephiro, her nickname for Clef was in their language, but he knew it meant something like brother. "You were distracted by Anfini?" He asked, confused, but then he spotted what was _following_ the girl, and didn't need the sharp shake of Clef's head to know he was wrong.

The creature resembled a young colt, at least in proportions – a good four or five feet tall, he couldn't tell at this distance, with legs that were still too long for it beneath the tawny fur. The head, claws and fluffy, downy wings were just as oversized, and the thing seemed in danger of tripping over its own feet as it bounded along behind the little girl.

"CLEF-NIIII-CHAAAAAAAAAN!" She yelled again, happily. "RUFF WANTS TO GO OUT AGAIN, BUT I'M NOT ALLOWWEED!" The short path between the Castle of the Pillar and the Master Mage's home was counted as part of the castle grounds for the children, but the forest, meadows, and the village on the other side were out of bounds until they were old enough to be careful and not get lost – at least, not _too_ often.

The two newcomers scrambled through the gate and raced over to them, Anfini flopping heavily to the grass by their feet, and the creature almost running into Clef, rubbing happily at the boy's shirt with the wickedly curved beak. Clef huffed, but reached up to scratch behind the thing's ears, a little smile on his face.

The scratch on Clef's face made sense, at least, he thought, sighing. A clumsy gesture from a friendly creature who didn't have full control over beak or claws yet. He'd been worried that the boy really was starting to fight again. Clef... had not settled in easily, to say the least.

"You found a Griffin." He said, staring at the creature despite himself as it started purring, its wings flapping and resettling on its back, a few fluffy feathers coming loose as it did so and falling to the floor. They were rare creatures, who tended to stay in the highest of the mountains of the sky, far from humans. There were new, adult feathers growing in beneath the down, but not all there yet. "…You found a _baby_ griffin."

"Ruff's'not a griffin, he'sa _grUffin_!" Announced the breathless girl, proudly. The corner of the mage's mouth twitched up despite himself, but he forced himself to look on sternly as his pupil coloured again and looked up.

"He was in the woods, and lost. I only talked to him a bit, but he followed me back." The boy looked back up at the creature, which had closed its eyes now, and was leaning harder against Clef's small hands. "There wasn't anyone with him, he was alone."

"And the pillar let him stay with you?" Holding out a hand for the 'gruffin' to inspect, the mage smiled after all. Of course it would be his hot tempered, lonely little pupil who befriended one of the most notoriously shy and dangerous creatures Cephiro had, and then had it follow him home. It snuffed at his hand suspiciously, feathers ruffling as if it hadn't even noticed him until now, but then Clef murmured something against its head, and it shook the feathers back into place, and rubbed softly against his hand. He stroked the tiny feathers on the top of its head.

Clef nodded, eyes still fixed on the creature. "'e said one more of us lot wouldn't make much of a difference, at least till the guard find his family. But I've got to look after him, because it was me he followed… and because he won't let most of the older kids near him." Clef wasn't quite able to hide his grin at that. "The kids he _does_ let near him are either big enough they're busy with chores, or too small to take him into the forest. So I have to."

"Ruff likes me!"

"Hmm." The mage turned to Anfini, who had scrambled back to her feet and was wrapped around one of the griffin's forelegs, heedless of the sharp claws dwarfing her feet, fluffing up the straggly beginnings of a fur-and-feather ruff growing in at the base of the creature's neck, above her head. "But Clef's having a lesson at the moment, he can't just run off into the forests. And shouldn't _you_ be in class, too?" She was young enough she should still be in the castle school in the afternoons when the elder children had chores or more specialised lessons.

"But Teacher Ninian told me to bring Ruff to Clef when he started being a nuisance so Clef could look after him." She proclaimed, big dark eyes wide open and doing their best to look innocent. "It's one of his chores!"

"And did you tell Ninian that Clef was with me? I know you knew."

The eyes grew wider, trying to convince him that of _course_ she hadn't told the teacher, he was their _teacher_, didn't he know _everything_? The mage sighed, but grinned at her all the same. It was hard to be mad at someone so very earnest in their wrongdoing. Still.

"Next time you will tell him, or you may have to do Clef's chores for him while he gets his work done, alright?" He got a very sincere nod in return, and turned to Clef. "As you haven't done your practise as I asked you to, there's little point in you staying with me this afternoon – and, as you had a fairly good reason, there won't be any punishment – but you are to have learnt that spell by tomorrow's lesson, and I want you to look up griffins in the library too." He stroked the thing's head again. "You may as well learn as much as you can while there's a willing example about, and it will help you look after him properly until his family is found. Alright?"

Clef was staring up at him, eyes shining, a disbelieving grin spreading across his face. "I – yes! Yes, sir! Come on Anfini, Ruff – let's go! Thank you, sir!"

The three were dashing into the trees almost before he had drawn his hand out of the way. He had to smile after them, but hoped that his pupil wouldn't get _too_ attached to the griffin. After all, once its family was found, they'd probably never see it again.

In the meantime he bent down and gathered up the scattered feathers. There was a lot of power in a griffin, especially when it was growing so fast. The feathers would be useful in helping his students learn to focus.

oOo

Nearly a month had passed since Clef first met the griffin, and yet when Clef appeared for his lesson that afternoon the creature was still trailing him, making a bad attempt at being unobtrusive by walking behind Clef. As he was a good bit taller, wider, and his tail was flicking about, it was the worst disguise imaginable.

The griffin – of gruffin, as even the adults about the castle were beginning to call it - still wasn't very sure of him, or most people over three foot tall. But it followed Clef around quite happily. It had even chased off a monster that had tried to attack a group of children in the forest, though it had curled up in a dark corner afterwards, its fur and feathers ruffled out at all angles until Clef sat with it quietly for three hours.

"The guardsmen still haven't found anything out?" He asked, watching Clef scowling.

"No. But they still think his family is somewhere looking for him." Clef wasn't looking up. The scuffed boots were digging a hole in the turf, but he refrained from saying anything – there had been a question Clef had been avoiding for the past few days, and he wasn't going to stop him asking it when he got the nerve up. "…I'm… what…"

The mage stayed silent.

"…What if they come back, but he doesn't know how to be a griffin anymore?" Clef said, finally looking up, a little too much light pooling in his eyes. The gruffin nudged at Clef's shoulder, seemingly knowing his carer was upset. "Would they just… just leave him here? Because… because he's got to learn to fly, soon, and I don't know how to… I can't _help_ him with that, and if they won't then-"

"Ssh, it's alright." The mage dropped to his knees, digging a handkerchief out of a pocket for the boy to scrub his eyes on. "It'll be alright, Clef. Trust me."

"You're sure?" Said a very small voice, hidden behind the white cloth.

"I'm sure." He lay a hand on Clef's shoulder, and the gruffin's head was resting on the other one, the creature making a strange whistling, purring sound. "Griffins are very close with their families, and those families are large – even if we can't find his parents, there will be an aunt or uncle that will take him in. They're very clever, you know, griffins. So's your gruffin, here."

It made a churring noise at them, agreeing with that, and Clef laughed a little into the handkerchief. "…I've been thinking about something we could do to give him some more suitable company while he's staying with us." And to distract you, he didn't say. Especially when this one leaves.

Clef looked at him, eyes a little bloodshot about the blue, but wide and hopeful. "…you have?"

"I wouldn't normally teach this to people your age," which was true enough, "so you have to be careful and do your very best, alright?" The boy nodded quickly. "Well, then. How much do you know about spirit beasts?"

"Spirit beasts?" Clef blinked at him as he stood, the handkerchief falling away from eyes that were only a little damp, now. "Like your fish? The one you brought me to the castle on?"

"Yes, that's right." He'd nearly forgotten that Clef had met one. Not many people summoned creatures these days, too afraid of what they'd find, which was a shame as far as he was concerned. After all, the heart – the _spirit_ - of the creature was the important part, and that had to be friendly to agree to being summoned. The shape was just something you made for it to use within the physical world, and could be enforced by the mage's will. But with so many monsters still about after the recent change of Pillar, people were nervous about anything related to creatures.

"It disappeared into your staff when we got off. But it… it didn't act like something you'd made…"

The mage smiled. He'd known this child had talent beyond a quick temper and the sharp bursts of power that came with it. "Yes. I _didn't_ make him. I just made the body he was in." Clef blinked up at him, confused, and he smiled down. "This is complicated, it might take a while to understand it, alright?"

They sat down in the sun to continue the lesson, the gruffin wandering around and nudging at the flowers in the background.

oOo

A week and a half later, Clef had found a spirit that agreed to be summoned by him, to be his friend. Two days after that, he brought it into this world, wrapped in the form of a fully adult griffin. And shape dictates a lot. By the third time it was summoned, the spirit _was_ a griffin, in every way that mattered.

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It was five months before the gruffin's parents were found. (He had, indeed, been very lost.) By that time, the spirit-griffin had taught the fledgling how to scramble into the air for short distances. It took only a few days before the family was flying off, over the forest and away.

He watched Clef standing and watching them go, looking very small next to his spirit-beast, a long feather shimmering gold and bronze in his hand – a thank you from the overjoyed parents. The spirit-griffin churred, and ruffled Clef's already messy hair with it's beak.

Clef leant against the creature's side for a long moment, burying his face in the warm ruff at the base of it's neck… then he stood straight, scrubbed at his eyes, and went on to finish his chores about the castle for the day… the spirit following by his shoulder.

The mage smiled, and went to finish his own work.

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end

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(...yep, that was pretty much fangirl Japanese in the middle there - nii-chan is a childlike way of saying 'big brother' in Japanese. I was too amused at my having justified it in text to think of anything else, sorry!)

My head canon for 'spirits' and summoned creatures isn't very precise, as yet, but I tend to think that some of them have a strong sense of what form they should be, and so keep that form - Ascot's creatures, for example. These are stronger willed, so it takes talent to work withthem. But others have less sense of a physical form, and can be pursuaded to take one, if you suggest it in the right manner.

As for the rest, well, Emeraude's younger than Clef, so he lived through at least one earlier transition. Why not more than one? (Any excuse to play with backstory, heh. Endless variations of backstory, even!)


End file.
